Is it just me or these days does it seem like everyone thinks that they’re some kind of pundit?
Yesterday was just another typical Sunday in which I look forward to getting my chores done early and having the rest of the day to myself. With that in mind I headed off to the laundromat with a book of crossword puzzles to help break monotony and make the time go a little faster. I was also looking forward to some time for myself.
I didn’t get either.
Instead, I got a lecture on politics from a local who decided to bend my ear about the Koch Brothers, John Paul Stevens and his running of the Supreme Court, the stretching of the Golden Rule and the sorry state of affairs over in Iraq.
Since it was about 8:00 AM and I was in no mood to debate I tried to bury my head in the crosswords but it wasn’t working. After a bit, I decided the best course of action was to go outside and grab myself a smoke or two until it was time to fold up my stuff and get the hell out of dodge.
I was tempted to tell the gentleman that was doing the lecturing that if I wanted a lesson on politics, I could have stayed home and watched the Sunday morning talk shows.
Flash forward a few a hours…
Since the World Cup is being played in Brazil and the United States didn’t play until 6:00 PM I decided to call one of my buddies to have a few “pregame pops” at my local watering hole and watch the game at home later in the day. We met around noon, parked our asses in our assigned seats and watched as Belgium was taking on Russia. A man I didn’t know sat down next to me, ordered two double shots of Grey Goose and a screwdriver as a chaser. He belted them down in less than three minutes and proceeded to order a couple of more. I glanced at the bartender and gave her a wary look and she just kinda shrugged my way with that “Hey, what can I do” kind of look.
It wasn’t long before I could feel his eyeballs bearing down on me, giving me that “drunken stare” and based up on my vast years of experience in these types of situations, knew it wouldn’t be long before he opened his mouth and what kind of garbage he would be spewing out.
I wasn’t disappointed.
I got a lecture on how soccer was so boring and un-American due to the lack of scoring and slow pace of play. I just sat there and did one of those inward groans but when he offered up his thoughts on how to make it more interesting (use two balls at the same time!) I couldn’t take it anymore.
”Sir, America is a free country, you’re free not to watch it if you don’t want to.”
With that, he headed off to the other end of the bar and it wasn’t long after that the bartender cut him off and he was out the door. We chatted about it a bit later when she mentioned that she didn’t think he used his own credit card to settle his tab. When I asked how she knew that I was told:
”He didn’t look like a Brenda.”
Ah, the wisdom of bartenders.
Now there’s a pundit I could listen to.
Oh yeah, he didn’t bother to leave a tip.